Passion
by Magery
Summary: Her hate is all she has left. All she can allow herself to have left.
1. Passion

I _hate_ you, John Mandrake. I hate you so much, so very, very much.

But do you know why I hate you? Why I _loathe_ the very thought of you?

It's not because of your stupid hair, regardless of how ridiculously you wore it. Or because of your dress sense, even though even your closest supporters can't describe it as anything better than 'unique'. It's not even because of the Government, or politics, or any fancy institution you ever had anything to do with.

No, I hate you for a different reason, a reason no-one but you or your stupid djinn will ever understand.

It's in the way my hatred burns through my bones, searing the marrow away until my body feels like it'll burst into flames and I'm so close to breaking I'm surprised I don't hear the cracks.

It's in the way my body tenses when people I've never met praise your name, and I feel like screaming and shouting and telling them exactly what John Mandrake was good for - _nothing_.

It's in the way my eyes betray me when I see someone with dark hair and a suit, when they widen like they're trying to illuminate the darkness stirring in my soul at the mere thought of you still out here somewhere. Because I hate you, John Mandrake, and you don't deserve to be alive any more than you deserve to be dead.

So why, truly, do I hate you?

It's not because you're a liar, or a cheating, conniving bastard who breaks promises as easily as he breaks some idiot's staff. No, that I could be fine with, because you're a politician and a magician and that's what you do.

In fact, I don't even hate you because you did all that to _me_, because you lied to me, or because you gave me the one thing that you knew would break me: false hope. I don't even hate you because you promised me something, and then never delivered (not that I was really surprised), regardless of how much I wanted it, how much I would have given _anything_ to see you keep it.

No, there's only one reason I hate you, _John Mandrake_. There's only one reason why I refused the Council's offer of a seat, why every time they ask me to help them organize a tribute for you I just turn on my heel and leave, why after a while Piper just told them to stop asking, and why she only shook her head sadly when they asked her what they'd done wrong.

My hatred for you is not something complex; I could never explain it to someone else, but I've never had any problems comprehending it myself. It's a simple thing, really - it only takes seven words to say, three if you discount having to identify it as the true, unequivocal reason that I wish I could hunt you down and burn the _heart_ right out of you.

I hate you because you were Nathaniel.

And I will never, _ever _hate Nathaniel.


	2. Release

You know, they've asked me to speak at each and every Revolution Day celebration, even after Piper told them to give up. She doesn't pass the requests on to me anymore, because she knows better than to stir up anything to do with you. But I know they ask – I can see it in the way she avoids anything even remotely related to you around this time of year. She's a good friend, maybe a better one that I deserve. Certainly a lot better than you ever were, if you were even my friend. Were you? What were we to each other? Anything? Nothing?

It's been ten years since John Mandrake sacrificed Nathaniel to save us all (or was it the other way around?). Oh, don't be surprised, I know Bartimaeus is still around. When I summoned him, he appeared looking like you. Bet you're proud of yourself right now – immortalised in a djinn's memory. A djinn everyone else thinks is dead, one nobody will ever summon (well, nobody who wasn't desperate like me. I hate how desperate you made me feel, back then). If that isn't what you deserve, I don't know what is.

I was in and out of the country those first few years, helping to finish Ptolemy's _Apocrypha. _You probably would have told me to stay and do my duty, but I'm not you, and I refuse to listen to your ghosts. It took me a while, but I completed it. I dedicated my half to Nathaniel and Bartimaeus; without his help, I never would have finished the work, and you know as well as I why your name is there as well. I thought for a moment that maybe you'd be satisfied with a book as well as a statue and a djinn's respect, but you weren't. You never left my head. Sometimes I wonder if you ever will.

Ten years is long enough, I think. You've been haunting me, your memory, his memory, everything that maybe we could have been. But that's all it'll ever come down to – what could have been. It's time to let you go, and I know just the way. I'm going to accept their offer to talk about the mighty John Mandrake, saviour of London. And the rest of the world, of course. You never were one for half measures. But I'm not going to talk about you; I'm going to talk about Nathaniel… who was also you. Or was he?

Sometimes I think I'm going mad, writing letters and diary entries addressed to someone who's no longer here. Someone who managed to be two people at once, who managed to make me hate and… not-hate them at the same time. But I don't really care; I've seen the Other Place – by all rights I _should_ be mad. I might go back there one day, when I'm tired of life.

Maybe I'll have one last discussion with Bartimaeus before the chaos consumes me forever. I wonder if there's an afterlife; there probably is, but I doubt you and I will ever meet there. Not in the same place, at any rate. After all, I could have been there, when you killed Nouda and Nouda killed you. Both of you. Maybe the Amulet could have protected you. But then again, you didn't deserve saving. Did you?

God, I'm rambling, aren't I? I hate how you still manage to confuse me no end; it's been ten years, can't you leave me in peace? But then again, that's why I'm writing this, aren't I? The last message I'll ever send you, apart from the speech I'll give for Revolution Day. I think Piper might know what I'm planning, or at least have expected me to finally decide to speak – she wasn't too surprised when I told her that yes, I would give a speech at the stupid celebration, in honour of John Mandrake. I almost called you Nathaniel, by accident – I cut myself off halfway, but I think she knew I was saying your true name.

They asked me once, if I knew what it was, so it could be put on your statue along with your chosen name. I told them it wasn't any their business – if you'd wanted people to know, you'd have told them. But you told me – you trusted the knowledge to me. That should have given me the right to tell them, but I didn't. I guess I wanted to keep a part of you to myself. Keep _that_ part of you to myself. Selfish, I know, but it's all I have left of you. It's all you ever left me with.

But tomorrow, tomorrow I'm going to give that up. You've been in the dark corners of my mind, cropping up where you shouldn't because you're not where you _should_ be, lingering in my thoughts for far, far too long. So I'll let Nathaniel go, let _you_ go, because John Mandrake is—was—Nathaniel, and where one goes the other must also.

Maybe then I'll finally be done with you.


End file.
